


Stars Hide Your Fires

by bannanachan



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannanachan/pseuds/bannanachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and Kanaya have their first fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Hide Your Fires

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, you are very nearly seven sweeps old, and you have just had your first real fight with your first real matesprit.

Or is it girlfriend? Rose calls you her girlfriend. You don’t mind the term, but you still prefer the Alternian, because you pity Rose Lalonde far too much to call her just a friend. It would kill you to call her friend; you love her. But here you are, furious with her.

It started about three weeks ago, a little more – time doesn’t make sense in the veil, despite your better efforts to force it to. Since you have officially become hers, the two of you sometimes sleep together in what passes for evening. Or she sleeps: you don’t sleep much any more, and when you do it’s most certainly in sopor. But a majority of her nights are spent with her curled around you.

And you expected Rose to have nightmares. You know a fair amount about those, and you know what happened to her, and you expected Rose to have nightmares. You hated seeing her shiver and moan, but you got used to dealing with it. You even found it gratifying, stroking her hair and calling her name until her face would calm and she would cuddle up to you tighter, and it felt like winning, like you finally had a handle on this tornado of a girl and you could protect her.

Until one night you knock on her door to go to sleep and she declines to let you in. She insists you need the rest yourself and sends you to your recuperacoon with a stern look. She’s right, you could use the rest, so you don’t complain. But when you see her the next morning, she looks so tired you feel your heart jump into your throat just looking at her face. She doesn’t let you in the whole next week, and you start to panic. You knock at her door for probably an hour and she doesn’t open up, or even acknowledge you. Bags are developing under her eyes and they getting darker, she stops in the middle of the day sometimes and just stares. She’s jumping at straws. The more urgent your queries become, the harsher her standard reply: “It’s nothing, Kanaya.”

Unable to stand it, you snuck into her room one night. Rose Lalonde was tossing and turning in her bedsheets like a body possessed, face a grimace, brow covered in sweat, and talking in her sleep in what was unmistakably eldritch.

This was the final straw.

You confronted her in the lab-turned-library, and at first she again told you it was nothing. She was taken aback when you said you had seen her. You begged her to let you help, or at least to talk to you about it. But she insisted she had it under control. You are pretty sure this is when the yelling started, when you said she didn’t have to put on that front any more and she asked if this was about her mother, and you said it was about everything, that she never talked, about losing her planet, her mother, her game, her life and so nearly her sanity, and you knew she wasn’t okay and wished she would admit it. She said she thought you said that you didn’t want to go down the road of pacification and with her and asked you if this was what quadrant vacillation was, you felt like screaming, and you told her that wasn’t a thing she could possibly understand, and she said that if that was the case you couldn’t possibly understand about her nightmares, and you said you wanted to listen anyway, and she asked why, accused you of bugging and fussing and meddling and never changing and by that time she was less than calm and it wasn’t even about the nightmares, you didn’t even know what you were shouting about any more but you stormed off in tears. And now you’re here, hurt and angry and confused and slowly regaining control over your sobs tucked off in one of the station’s innumerable empty rooms, and standing in the doorway is none other than her brother.

You blink in surprise, sniffle, and turn away. “Whatever you need can wait, Strider.” You say tersely. “I am not in the mood.”

He does nothing. You examine his face, but as always, Dave Strider’s visage is as unreadable and maddeningly alike to his ecto sibling as possible. After a moment, he picks up the hem of his cape and extends it to you. “Need a handkerchief?”

You roll your eyes and sniffle again. “I am not in the mood for jokes either.”

“Wasn’t joking. Don’t let word get around to Karkles but this thing is legitimately filthy, a little alien troll snot isn’t going to make it much worse.”

Warily, you take his cape and blow your nose, then let it drop to the floor. For a split second, you think you almost see him smile. “That’s the spirit.” He says.

You shake your head, wondering whether to be infuriated or grateful. “What are you doing here, Dave?” You demand. “I do not understand what you could possibly have to say to me right now. Or did you not hear your sister and I screaming at one another? If you are here from her, whatever it is, I very much do not wish to hear it.”

“What do you take me for, the postal service? I’m here of my own accord, Maryam. Scout’s honor.”

You are surprised, but retain composure (or what composure you have after blowing your nose on his cape). “Putting aside the fact that I have no idea what a postal service is, I remain at a loss as to your reasoning if you are not acting as a peacemaker for your sister.”

“Yeah, about my sister.” Says Dave. “You’re right.”

Now you are really confused. “What?”

“You’re right.” He repeats. “She isn’t okay. Doesn’t take a genius to notice that, God knows we should probably all be in therapy for years to deal with this shit. But Rose is probably even worse. Half the stuff that happened to her, she’s got no one to blame but herself. She’s reckless and self-destructive, and truth be told I’m not sure going God Tier changed that at all. She acts like she knows what she’s doing now with all the Seer of Light shit, but it was obvious to everyone that she’s a mess even before she started communing with horrorterrors in the night.”

Hearing Dave Strider speak so candidly is nearly as shocking as hearing him talk to you about his sister. Rose and Dave obviously had an all right relationship, but it had always seemed so private. Neither of them liked to express their feelings, a reality that was maddeningly clear to you, so though you figured when it was just the two of them Strider might express concern or caution her, you did not understand why he was talking about it with you.

You choose your words carefully. “With all due respect, Dave, none of that information is news to me. It worries me, and it has worried me since the moment our correspondence began, but I do not see what you or I can do about it, she is… if she doesn’t want my help then there is no way I can help her.” It takes some effort to keep your voice from breaking as you speak that sentence, but you pull it off.

“Yeah.” Says Dave. “She’s sort of like that.”

“Which leads me to my initial question. Why did you come here? I am happy to know there is another soul out there worrying over Rose Lalonde’s well-being but you could have picked a better time to say so.”

“Yeah, I dunno.” Says Dave. “But that wasn’t really it. I think I just wanted to remind you. That you help. Even if you don’t feel like you are, and she’s not really letting you… you just being there to bug her about this shit and hold her hand? That is doing way more to keep her from going off the deep end than I ever could.” He pauses, searching for words. When he speaks, he remains a bit reticent, slower than usual, stripped of wit. “I can’t do much for Rose. Not really. If it’s left to the two of us, there’s just no way for us to be serious with each other – I think the last time it happened, we were both about to die in an explosion of green fire, and even then we barely talked. But you’re not like us. When you’re worried about her, you can just worry, no bullshit – hell, she might even listen. It’s Rose, so she’ll probably snark at you. But it’s more than I do, so – thanks. She’s my sister, and – I don’t want her to die, or self-destruct. Not again. So if anything you do helps stop that, I owe you thanks.” 

You can still hardly believe your ears, and you don’t quite know what to say. Flattered, baffled, and humbled at once, you suddenly find yourself feeling a little better, or at least not so mad. Dave’s face is expressionless, his mouth having twitched not a corner the entire time he spoke. This does not stop him from looking remarkably vulnerable.

“You’re welcome.” You say finally. “Really. And… thank you too, for being there for her. Even if you don’t say it, she can tell when you’re worried, and it does give her pause. As much as I want to – I could never keep that girl safe with by my power alone.

He again pauses, more briefly this time. When he speaks, all he says is “Yeah.”

You wonder why you and Dave Strider have never talked much before.

**Author's Note:**

> do you ever just accidentally never upload the second or third fanfiction you ever wrote after transitioning from tumblr to ao3?
> 
> I do apparently.
> 
> Title is from Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford and Sons.


End file.
